Have you joined Pinterest yet? After hearing about the site from virtually all of my favorite style bloggers, I finally made an account last week, and I am hooked!

Pinterest is a free site with a very simple concept: when you see an image you like anywhere on the internet, you click a bookmarklet labeled “Pin It” (I keep mine on my bookmark bar, but you can also simply bookmark it), add an optional caption or tag, and import the photo onto a “board” (basically a folder) on your Pinterest page. Right now I have a board for DIY ideas, recipes, style ideas, and wedding inspiration (since J. and I are getting married next year!). There’s a social media aspect to the site too, so you can “follow” other peoples’ boards, and friends can follow your boards, too. Finally, the photos are all sourced, which is great for attribution and for finding your way back to the original content later!

Aesthetically, I really like the way the images are laid out on each page; the screenshot above gives a sense of the boards’ layout, with each photo stacked up in columns with others on that board. (This screenshot is actually of the homepage, but the boards share the same layout.) My only gripe with Pinterest is actually quite minimal: since the site currently requires members to make accounts through their Facebook or Twitter account, I was automatically forced to “follow” the boards of every Facebook friend I have who has a Pinterest account, which is totally awkward! I wish the system was opt-in instead of opt-out.

I would definitely recommend Pinterest to anyone who spends a lot of time on blogs, since so far I find Pinterest to be better than bookmarks and screenshots for keeping my ideas together. Since I am in the very early stages of wedding planning, I especially like how it is helping me keep track of wedding inspiration — for example, I love being able to see all the invitation designs I like side-by-side! Plus, unlike screenshots (which I had been using before), I never have to worry about forgetting which website sells an invitation I like, since Pinterest images always link back to the original content.

Right now, Pinterest requires folks to request an invite, which you can do here. But before you join, be forewarned: if you start wading into the site’s most popular boards, Pinterest can be a total time suck. But the most awesome, stylist, and inspirational time suck you’ve ever been in!

[ screenshot from Pinterest. This is probably obvious, since my little corner of the internet is probably read by all of six people, but I do not work for Pinterest, and they did not compensate me in any way for this post. I’m just spreading the good word about a site I love! ]

According to the Internet Archive, the earliest incidence of the White House Black Market site, complete with the “W” in the same font as it is currently, is August 2005. Wikipedia has been using their logo at least since December 2003. Now, White House Black Market surely existed as a brick-and-mortar shop before they had a web presence, and whether Wikipedia was wide-spread enough for a website designer to notice the similarity between the logos in 2005 is up for debate. Still, it is a funny coincidence!

In true obsessed-with-punctuation form, while finishing up a paper today I scoured the internet* to figure out if nation–state should be connected with a hyphen (-) or an en dash (–)**. While searching, I came across the style guide for The Economist:

Scroll down a bit, and you come across this gem of a suggestion:

I can just picture the bored copy editor putting this list together and slipping that one in like an easter egg for those hearty few who are nerdy enough to read through an entire list of hyphenated and not-hyphenated words.

* If you’re interested in the outcome of this search: although I couldn’t find a definitive word in the matter (e.g. no website said, “Hey dude! Everyone knows that nation–state should be connected with a ____!”), I feel pretty confident that my original choice of an en dash was correct, since en dash is used to connect two terms that do not modify each other, such as Smith–Jones Treaty or California–Oregon border. I think nation–state falls in this category, no?

** Of course this would happen in this post: for some reason the en dashes I coded (that is basically the extent of my html knowledge, haha) do not show up on my screen, and are rendered as lame-ass hyphens instead. Hopefully your computer is smarter than mine, so you can get the full effect of my punctuation journey!

J.Crew and Old Navy are currently selling nearly-identical t-shirts. Observe:

The main difference? A few rows of sequins… and $45. Both shirts are currently on sale, which puts J.Crew’s at $49.99 (down from the original $72!!) and Old Navy’s version in Navy Stripe at $4.99. Personally, I’d rather go sans-sequins—full disclosure: I bought the Old Navy shirt a few weeks ago!—but for those who prefer their striped shirts to be a little more festive, might I suggest an alternative, courtesy of Amazon?

No, it’s fine. Punctuation is not really that important, Kate Spade. It’s not like you’re a major national brand or anything, and it’s not like this is the way your official website appears when searched on Google. I mean, what’s the big deal, right?

Is this phenomenon becoming more pervasive, or am I just becoming more paranoid and alert?

Here’s what I want to know: is it really that hard to figure out the rules for when you should and shouldn’t use an -‘s at the end of a word?!?

This is the grammar error which, more than any other, sends me into a fiery rage of incoherent ranting.

A blog I frequent (not to be named) is a particularly egregious offender, throwing apostrophes hither and thither without much thought or consistancy. I’ve mostly been able to ignore it so far—thus allowing myself to control my RAGE—but today, I’ve had it. The headline of today’s post reads:

Blow Outs | Curly Fro’s and Twist Outs

Three plural nouns: two pluralized correctly and one incorrectly. Can anyone explain why anyone, ever, anywhere, at any point in time, in any situation, ever would think it was appropriate to pluralize one word out of three with a different pattern??

I’m serious about this. It is making me consider removing this blog from my Google Reader—that’s how upset it makes me!